Live Review: Ray Gun & The Adjitators @ Hoxton Bar & Grill

“Have you ever been to a rock concert before?” asks Ray Gun – the stick-thin singer with a shock of bleach-blond hair – in a foxy, faux-transatlantic slur. The nervous crowd look too scared to come anywhere near the front, so he jumps down and spends much of the set weaving vampishly through the audience. Soon they’re advancing towards the stage and before long the music’s got them moving.

There’s only a three-song teaser on their Myspace page to go on, but we like the sound of it so we’ve come to check out new band Ray Gun and the Adjitators at the so-hip-it-hurts Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen.

Opening with “The Dream”, there are plenty of influences here, but the band ultimately sound like no-one else but themselves. Sure, there’s a flash of Elton to his voice here, Bowie guitars there, but it never threatens to topple the thrill of it all. They’re so new, we don’t know any of the song-titles, but from the sound of it, “Can’t Say No” and “Waste My Time” mix a glam-rock stomp with strung-out funk in an infectious blend of 70s and 80s sounds.

“Fools Rush In” is a gorgeous slow song about unrequited love that has a chorus to mend the most broken of hearts. When the Aerosmith soft-rock guitar solo comes in, it shouldn’t work but it totally does.

And suddenly it’s all over, the crowd won over by just six hi-NRG punk-funk songs – if only all rock concerts could be this much fun.